5 items
The Omaha band that fused alt-rock, reggae, funk, and rap into a laid-back sound built for summer. Their 1995 self-titled "Blue Album" broke them nationwide on the strength of "Down" and "All Mixed Up," and their two-vocalist lineup has stayed intact for decades.
Four university friends from London who turned quiet melancholy into the biggest sound of the decade. From "Yellow" to "Clocks" to "Fix You" to "Viva la Vida," Coldplay was the default soundtrack of the 2000s — the band on every mixtape, every TV drama's saddest scene, and every iPod's most-played list, whether you admitted it or not.
Austin trio Fastball broke through in 1998 with 'The Way,' a song that transformed a real couple's tragic road trip into an anthem of eternal possibility. Written by Tony Scalzo after reading about the true story of Lela and Raymond Howard, the track spent seven weeks at #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks and earned two Grammy nominations. It was the band's commercial peak—a moment of mainstream success they'd never replicate.
"I'm not a perfect person…" — and suddenly it's 2004 in every car, mall, and graduation slideshow in America. Hoobastank's colossal apology ballad spent the year parked near the top of the charts and never really left rock radio's rotation.
The Los Angeles band that made being a nerd sound like the coolest thing in the world. The 1994 "Blue Album" and its Spike Jonze videos — the Happy Days-themed "Buddy Holly" chief among them — turned Rivers Cuomo's sweater-clad geek-rock into a generational touchstone.